In the spirit of transparency and community, the Library of Congress has established an internal process to create open source software. This will make it easier for software developers and sponsors within the Library to produce software that can be freely redistributed to users worldwide.

"The overall effect will be to clarify and streamline the process for releasing software as open source," said Michelle Springer, a digital initiatives project manager at the Library, "allowing the Library and its partners to more fully participate in the open source development community."

The Library has been especially active in developing tools that support digital preservation processes, including the secure transfer of digital files. This includes the release of a full suite of digital content transfer tools that support the Bagit specification.
http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/news ... ource.html

Two thousand open source applications for the public sector
The European Union's Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR.eu) as of today is offering public administrations access to more than two thousand free and open source applications.

The OSOR is a platform where public administrations can exchange information and experiences and collaborate in developing free and open source software. The platform has managed to bring together more than 2000 such open source software applications in just sixteen months after its launch.
http://www.osor.eu/news/two-thousand-op ... lic-sector

Florida State U. Pulls Out of Kuali Open-Source Software Project
Florida State had signed on in 2007 as a founding member of the venture, one of several higher-education software collaborations that fall under the umbrella of the nonprofit Kuali Foundation. It joined seven other institutions—including the University of California at Berkeley, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Maryland at College Park—committed to investing at least $1-million a year to develop software for managing student admission, registration and other tasks.
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Florida-S ... -of/21540/

Is Open Source Creating a 'Tidal Wave of Job Losses'?
What has Indonesia done to make it onto the Special 301 Priority Watch list? Turns out it had the temerity to send out a circular endorsing the use and adoption of open-source software within government organizations, which it hoped would "result in the use of legitimate open source and Free Open Source Software (FOSS) and a reduction in overall costs of software."

Who could object to that? The IIPA it seems. A developing nation that seeks to reduce its software costs and sees value in being able to access source code to modify the software it uses to best suit its needs "simply weakens the software industry and undermines its long-term competitiveness by creating an artificial preference for companies offering open-source software and related services."
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/a ... hp/3868896

Think local, go ‘open’
Open source technologies are making significant inroads in governments around the world, avers Gopi Ganapathy, President & CEO, Essentia, US (www.essentia-corp.com). This is as a result of open source providing significant benefits such as low cost, flexibility of use and modification, lack of vendor lock-in, and most important of all the ability to create drive a vibrant local economy of solution providers in innovation, development, deployment, training and support, adds Gopi, during a recent interaction with Business Line.
http://beta.thehindu.com/business/Econo ... 244213.ece

The Government has allocated millions to create an Institute for Web Science.
Alongside promises for superfast broadband, the Government today announced £30 million to create an Institute for Web Science, lead by web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee and professor Nigel Shadbolt.

The institute follows on the pair's previous work getting the Government to open up its data to the public, and will work with businesses, conduct research and advise the Government - especially when it comes to using procurement to encourage new technologies.
http://www.itpro.co.uk/621697/tim-berne ... eb-studies

Italian Court OKs Preference for Open Source
Here's a big win for open source: the Italian Constitutional Court has approved a law in Piedmont giving preference to open source, ruling that it is not anti-competitive:
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2010/ ... -open.html

Promoting Free Software in Developing Countries
Here's a paradox. Free software seems perfect for developing countries: it's free both to obtain and to share, runs well on low-spec machines and – an important aspect that is often overlooked – can be easily localised. And yet the uptake of free software in many such countries is poor, with Windows still dominating computing at all levels. How is this possible?
http://www.h-online.com/open/features/P ... 70345.html

Why Open Source?
Managers are quickly realizing the benefit that community-based development can have on their businesses. The real-time communication and transparency their developers are discovering in open source communities are exactly what internal development teams need in order to create in a more agile way and meet the increasing business demand for delivering higher-quality software with reduced development cycles.
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/69788 ... 1271529861